Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:09.170 welcome back to be, to be growth. I'm dan Sanchez, my friends call me dan 3 00:00:09.170 --> 00:00:14.020 says and I'm here with Robin Farm. Unb Armenian, who is the author of Thought 4 00:00:14.020 --> 00:00:18.900 Leader, Formula Robin, Welcome to the show. I have been so excited to talk to 5 00:00:18.900 --> 00:00:23.320 you today, thanks for having me. Fantastic as the audience knows. I've 6 00:00:23.320 --> 00:00:27.560 been on a deep dive in this month of june to talk about thought leadership, 7 00:00:27.560 --> 00:00:31.320 marketing and all things like related to thought leadership, how to create 8 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:35.090 thought leadership content. What does it mean to be a thought leader and what 9 00:00:35.090 --> 00:00:39.730 path does one have to take in order to become a competent and actually well 10 00:00:39.730 --> 00:00:43.380 respected thought leaders? None of those fakers that make all of us cringe 11 00:00:43.380 --> 00:00:47.440 when they are used dropping declaring that there a thought leader out there 12 00:00:47.440 --> 00:00:51.630 on linkedin, right, How do you actually become an authentic thought leader? And 13 00:00:51.630 --> 00:00:54.890 those are the questions were exploring in this deep dive. I was excited to 14 00:00:54.890 --> 00:00:59.290 talk to Robin because she wrote a fantastic book I have here with me now. 15 00:00:59.300 --> 00:01:03.410 And there was a number of interesting insights I had from the book though 16 00:01:03.410 --> 00:01:07.070 there was none more interesting than I think her take on personal branding 17 00:01:07.070 --> 00:01:11.280 within thought leadership. So what I want to head into that topic first, I 18 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:15.850 wanted to get your back story for the audience. Robin, if you could elaborate 19 00:01:15.850 --> 00:01:18.440 like how did you get into thought leadership, how did that become a thing 20 00:01:18.440 --> 00:01:24.810 for you? So what I did is I used to work in both events, but also business 21 00:01:24.810 --> 00:01:28.860 development and sales. And this is all around health care technology companies. 22 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:32.340 And when I first got to Silicon Valley the first few years it was kind of 23 00:01:32.340 --> 00:01:38.190 tough. I am a high energy, very petite blonde and uh in Silicon Valley which 24 00:01:38.190 --> 00:01:44.530 is mostly men and I found myself being sexually harassed uh sabotaged at work. 25 00:01:44.540 --> 00:01:49.490 I mean it was crazy people stealing my work. And I realized early on you can't 26 00:01:49.490 --> 00:01:53.860 fight that directly through something like HR HR is not there to protect the 27 00:01:53.860 --> 00:01:57.930 woman, right on the employee. It's there to protect the company. And so as 28 00:01:57.930 --> 00:02:02.240 soon as I realized that I decided to change the game, I went home one 29 00:02:02.240 --> 00:02:06.180 weekend and I created a five year project plan for myself on how to 30 00:02:06.180 --> 00:02:10.770 become a professional speaker and author in order to have a stronger name 31 00:02:10.770 --> 00:02:15.280 and presence than the men that were pushing me down and let me tell you it 32 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:20.550 worked beautifully the day my first book published the patient as Ceo. It 33 00:02:20.550 --> 00:02:25.040 was like flipping a light switch on on the sexual harassment and sabotage in 34 00:02:25.040 --> 00:02:29.380 the workplace. In fact, it changed the power dynamic so much that I felt like 35 00:02:29.380 --> 00:02:35.770 I was in a tank and the men were on horseback. And so when the Me Too 36 00:02:35.770 --> 00:02:41.930 movement happened, fast forward to 2016, I realized, wait a second, it's this is 37 00:02:41.930 --> 00:02:45.160 happening to other women. Like that's that was a big thing. Like we didn't 38 00:02:45.160 --> 00:02:48.900 realize it was happening so many other places. So I said, you know what, I 39 00:02:48.900 --> 00:02:52.960 have a solution for this instead of trying to fight people directly on this, 40 00:02:52.970 --> 00:02:58.170 why don't we raise up the women right and do what I did for myself. But for, 41 00:02:58.180 --> 00:03:01.780 you know, millions of women out there. And so I took my five year project plan, 42 00:03:01.790 --> 00:03:06.390 turned it into a system for anyone to use regardless of industry. And that's 43 00:03:06.390 --> 00:03:10.890 my solution now for the meeting movement. That's fantastic. That's so 44 00:03:10.890 --> 00:03:14.250 interesting that it like positioning yourself as a thought leader and having 45 00:03:14.250 --> 00:03:18.690 people like believe it and it's not like it was fake that it's real and 46 00:03:18.690 --> 00:03:24.090 it's something substantive to believe, like repositioned in people's minds and 47 00:03:24.100 --> 00:03:28.310 it just had them behave differently for you. It was because it was for some 48 00:03:28.310 --> 00:03:32.370 very practical reasons, but obviously it came with a lot more benefits than 49 00:03:32.370 --> 00:03:37.820 just keeping men from being jerks. What were some of the other benefits you saw 50 00:03:37.820 --> 00:03:42.830 from being becoming a thought leader and establishing that sense of trust 51 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:48.880 and confidence that other people put into you. So really it comes down to 52 00:03:48.890 --> 00:03:52.760 when you're going to do something like this and I put a lot of time and money 53 00:03:52.760 --> 00:03:56.690 into building myself into an author and a professional speaker. You need a 54 00:03:56.690 --> 00:04:00.430 multitude of reasons. So I always think of myself, okay, so what are those top 55 00:04:00.430 --> 00:04:05.460 three reasons? First of all I can, you know, battle against these men done 56 00:04:05.640 --> 00:04:09.330 Right. Second of all, I do business development and a lot of the times 57 00:04:09.330 --> 00:04:13.290 sales, which means now that I'm an author and a professional speaker, I 58 00:04:13.290 --> 00:04:18.010 get access to events that people don't even know are going on like internally 59 00:04:18.010 --> 00:04:22.490 at some of the big insurance companies or the big device or pharmaceutical 60 00:04:22.490 --> 00:04:26.880 companies. And I get to meet the ceos of like Fortune 500 companies all the 61 00:04:26.880 --> 00:04:30.960 time by being able to be an invited speaker there. And so that really 62 00:04:30.960 --> 00:04:34.910 helped with the business development. And then I also understand that 63 00:04:34.910 --> 00:04:40.520 technology is really disrupting a lot of the way we work. And so I believe in 64 00:04:40.520 --> 00:04:45.510 multiple revenue streams you cannot rely on anymore. Just one salary from 65 00:04:45.510 --> 00:04:51.590 one company over, you know, your career and expect to be able to survive. And 66 00:04:51.590 --> 00:04:56.320 so if you have multiple revenue streams, you'll be able to turn to one in the 67 00:04:56.320 --> 00:05:00.930 case of something like a pandemic or of course artificial intelligence or 68 00:05:00.930 --> 00:05:06.690 robotics taking over or displacing your job in some way. And so we saw this 69 00:05:06.690 --> 00:05:10.450 this past year because I have so many revenue streams that I was able to set 70 00:05:10.450 --> 00:05:14.280 up because I'm an author and a professional speaker means I could lean 71 00:05:14.280 --> 00:05:17.740 on a lot of them when my professional speaking went away, like Ma'am 72 00:05:17.750 --> 00:05:23.190 overnight, I lost most of my paid talks and I was able to very quickly just 73 00:05:23.200 --> 00:05:28.110 rely on one of my other revenue streams. Fantastic. I've spent a lot of time 74 00:05:28.110 --> 00:05:30.420 thinking about it. And I've also, I mean reading a lot of thought 75 00:05:30.420 --> 00:05:34.020 leadership books, a lot of thought leadership books are more geared 76 00:05:34.020 --> 00:05:38.630 towards the person who wants to become a thought leader than the marketers who 77 00:05:38.630 --> 00:05:41.520 want to position the company as a thought leader, which is kind of two 78 00:05:41.520 --> 00:05:43.950 different things. But they obviously overlap because a lot of times the 79 00:05:43.950 --> 00:05:47.110 amount of position a company as a thought leader, usually taking maybe 80 00:05:47.110 --> 00:05:51.470 the ceo of founder and a internal subject matter expert and turning them 81 00:05:51.470 --> 00:05:55.870 into the face of the company or faces, Right. Um, so lots of overlap between 82 00:05:55.870 --> 00:05:59.410 those two things, but I've certainly thought about how, I don't know, I 83 00:05:59.410 --> 00:06:03.820 think this is going to become a bigger part of the future for many people, 84 00:06:03.830 --> 00:06:07.570 especially as, you know, taxes go up for companies, you can't hire as many 85 00:06:07.570 --> 00:06:11.740 people, people are going to be leaning on contractors more that a lot of 86 00:06:11.740 --> 00:06:16.760 people will essentially become a mix of contractor. Thought leader, freelancer 87 00:06:16.840 --> 00:06:20.540 with probably there are side hustles and businesses going on. Well, I think 88 00:06:20.540 --> 00:06:23.930 a lot of people are going to have to diversify income in this in the future 89 00:06:23.940 --> 00:06:27.720 and they're probably more people reading your book and others like it to 90 00:06:27.720 --> 00:06:32.150 do so, so it's fun to be on the forefront of what I think is going to 91 00:06:32.150 --> 00:06:36.510 be even a more a larger tidal wave coming in the future. One of the things 92 00:06:36.510 --> 00:06:42.260 you dive into in your book is around personal branding and one of the things 93 00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:45.820 that I want to dive into before we even cover, like the things you go into and 94 00:06:45.820 --> 00:06:51.300 being, how to build a personal branch, very practical is why personal branding 95 00:06:51.300 --> 00:06:55.760 is actually a really important part of building out your thought leadership. 96 00:06:56.440 --> 00:07:00.540 You got to look at it as if you were a company and in fact I call myself Robin 97 00:07:00.550 --> 00:07:05.050 inc because I look at it like a company and so you've got to build that 98 00:07:05.050 --> 00:07:09.150 personal brand the same way you would build a company brand. What is the 99 00:07:09.150 --> 00:07:13.790 voice? And I mean by voice, not just the way your voice sounds, but how do 100 00:07:13.790 --> 00:07:17.920 you communicate? Is it with, you know, long science words or you're 101 00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:21.860 communicating to more of a general audience. So really everything that 102 00:07:21.860 --> 00:07:27.340 goes into a brand what you look like, right? So for instance, I'm recognized 103 00:07:27.350 --> 00:07:33.610 by complete strangers from behind. Like that is kind of crazy. I have people 104 00:07:33.610 --> 00:07:37.380 come up to me all the time. High you Robin firm information and it is, it's 105 00:07:37.380 --> 00:07:41.540 hilarious. So I have so many different aspects of what I look like that are 106 00:07:41.540 --> 00:07:48.000 very signature and very, very obvious. So like imagine if you are a guy and a 107 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:52.140 lot of guys in my world are, you know, physicians or they work in firma or med 108 00:07:52.140 --> 00:07:55.190 device. And so you know, a lot of the time they'll still dress up to go to 109 00:07:55.190 --> 00:07:58.260 conferences and they're like, oh, I'm gonna wear a pocket square to 110 00:07:58.260 --> 00:08:03.880 differentiate like how is anyone going to see that? Right? Like you want your 111 00:08:03.880 --> 00:08:08.590 signature look and I call it a signature look to really be something 112 00:08:08.590 --> 00:08:13.390 that's in all the photos. And so that's really anything from your, you know, 113 00:08:13.390 --> 00:08:17.480 chest up and it's not going to always include a something like a pocket 114 00:08:17.480 --> 00:08:23.750 square. The other thing is, is is it visual from stage? Right? Like a lot of 115 00:08:23.750 --> 00:08:27.200 the time, something as small, like a pocket square or even just like maybe 116 00:08:27.200 --> 00:08:31.910 the way you do your makeup isn't visible from stage. And so things like 117 00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:36.549 your hair, your eye glasses, if you wear glasses, that is a fantastic 118 00:08:36.549 --> 00:08:40.520 opportunity because you can do the funny rims or a certain color, right? 119 00:08:40.520 --> 00:08:44.630 We were talking earlier that you remember one of the speakers because he 120 00:08:44.630 --> 00:08:49.350 wears these bright yellow glasses, yep, all those little things and I find 121 00:08:49.940 --> 00:08:54.260 personal brands can be powerful because they're essentially a representation of 122 00:08:54.260 --> 00:08:59.170 you, but they're not necessarily the full you, right? And I think I've often 123 00:08:59.180 --> 00:09:02.890 often heard advice when it comes to building personal brand of just be you 124 00:09:02.900 --> 00:09:06.450 right, which I've always kind of felt rings true and at the same time it's 125 00:09:06.450 --> 00:09:09.280 kind of frustrating because you're like, well what do I do with that? That's 126 00:09:09.280 --> 00:09:13.010 like just be me. I'm a lot of things, it's like which part of me like the 127 00:09:13.010 --> 00:09:16.960 past me currently or like the me, I'd rather be out in the future somewhere. 128 00:09:16.970 --> 00:09:20.530 So it's not, I don't find that it's the best advice when it comes to personal 129 00:09:20.530 --> 00:09:25.960 branding. So like one of the things you talk about is being authentic or a B A 130 00:09:25.960 --> 00:09:29.220 always be authentic, which I find is really important. It's like of course, 131 00:09:29.220 --> 00:09:33.560 it's not like when I say just be used bad, don't mean to be someone else, but 132 00:09:34.040 --> 00:09:39.790 there's something more to it than just being who you are all the time. So when 133 00:09:39.790 --> 00:09:43.260 you say always be authentic, how do I actually go about doing that 134 00:09:43.260 --> 00:09:49.540 practically? So first of all don't tell like white lies. So I when networking, 135 00:09:49.540 --> 00:09:53.120 I use this kind of an example when you go up to someone, I like to compliment 136 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:57.760 them on something that I like about them. But I will never compliment on 137 00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:02.600 someone on something I don't like, right? And that's just one very simple 138 00:10:02.600 --> 00:10:07.370 example of showing you where people will understand that you are either 139 00:10:07.370 --> 00:10:11.830 telling the truth or you're lying. You say, oh I love those shoes on you. It's 140 00:10:11.830 --> 00:10:17.040 really obvious when you're lying, right? And so take that kind of situation. But 141 00:10:17.040 --> 00:10:21.650 put yourself on stage, if you are trying to tell people something that 142 00:10:21.650 --> 00:10:25.210 you yourself don't believe in, or if you're wearing something that makes you 143 00:10:25.210 --> 00:10:30.250 feel uncomfortable or you're not used to or you've taken someone else's 144 00:10:30.250 --> 00:10:35.100 advice on a brand new haircut, a you're not gonna be coming across as someone 145 00:10:35.100 --> 00:10:39.140 who isn't um isn't lying, right? You're not going to come across as if you are 146 00:10:39.140 --> 00:10:43.740 telling the truth, you're going to come across as feeling uncomfortable. That 147 00:10:43.740 --> 00:10:48.210 is so obvious when someone is wearing something they don't like, it is 148 00:10:48.210 --> 00:10:52.070 incredibly obvious to everybody else that they're uncomfortable, right? And 149 00:10:52.070 --> 00:10:57.430 so if you are always authentic, always exactly who you are. You're never put 150 00:10:57.430 --> 00:11:01.600 in that position of being that impostor, and no one's going to notice that. So 151 00:11:01.600 --> 00:11:04.660 there's a little bit more to it than that, I think is even like when you 152 00:11:04.660 --> 00:11:07.840 dress up and you're taking photos and you're on stage you're wearing the same 153 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:12.050 things, but I'm like even in this book cover your brain like a red dress and 154 00:11:12.050 --> 00:11:15.590 I've seen you another book covers, you're wearing similar type dresses um 155 00:11:15.590 --> 00:11:17.830 in different colors depending on the audience, Right? Something you 156 00:11:17.830 --> 00:11:21.510 mentioned the book, but you're probably not always wearing that dress. Maybe 157 00:11:21.510 --> 00:11:25.330 when you're behind the scenes or it's like a cozy work saturday or something 158 00:11:25.330 --> 00:11:28.600 like that, or you just outfit the mall, you're probably not always wearing 159 00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:32.900 those things, but when you're on brand or you're picking something, you're 160 00:11:32.900 --> 00:11:35.440 probably really comfortable in this dress for starters, so it's not 161 00:11:35.450 --> 00:11:41.060 inauthentic, but when you're getting in building your brand, you're essentially 162 00:11:41.060 --> 00:11:44.430 highlighting certain aspects to you and kind of leaving the rest off the table, 163 00:11:44.430 --> 00:11:50.180 is that right? Exactly? To give you an example. I gave this talk in Germany 164 00:11:50.180 --> 00:11:54.560 and it was at this giant sports conference and I mean like full on like 165 00:11:54.560 --> 00:11:58.730 fitness studios, were there giant pieces of fitness equipment and for my 166 00:11:58.730 --> 00:12:03.160 main talk, I went in my normal dress and high heels and then the next day I 167 00:12:03.160 --> 00:12:08.990 was doing a kind of more of an informal sit down interview and so I decided to 168 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:12.560 grab some workout equipment, like everyone else is wearing workout gear, 169 00:12:12.640 --> 00:12:17.310 I threw on sneakers, yoga pants and one of these energy harvesting shirts, it 170 00:12:17.310 --> 00:12:22.790 was, you know, high tech workout shirt, nobody recognized me, like the people 171 00:12:22.790 --> 00:12:26.690 who are, who are waiting for me and they had never met me in person, but 172 00:12:26.700 --> 00:12:29.960 they were watching for someone with a dress and high heels on and they're 173 00:12:29.960 --> 00:12:33.070 like, where where is she, where is Robin? She's late? And I'm like, hi, 174 00:12:33.070 --> 00:12:39.930 I'm right in front of you. It was hilarious because I was just not even 175 00:12:39.930 --> 00:12:42.360 recognized because I was in that sport in uniform. 176 00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:46.390 So you feel like building a personal brand is really like just highlighting 177 00:12:46.390 --> 00:12:50.380 the parts that you want to highlight in order to essentially. I mean it's kind 178 00:12:50.380 --> 00:12:53.760 of a marketing play. You're, you're highlighting your finding out what the 179 00:12:53.760 --> 00:12:57.490 audience expects to some degree and you're bringing the right elements that 180 00:12:57.490 --> 00:13:00.560 are true to you. But you're kind of mixing and matching. You're trying to 181 00:13:00.740 --> 00:13:03.670 bring the right things so that you're leaving the right impression that you 182 00:13:03.670 --> 00:13:08.980 want to leave its designing based on what's already true about you. And it's 183 00:13:08.980 --> 00:13:13.530 a lot more than close, but be from anything from the way you talk to, the 184 00:13:13.530 --> 00:13:17.890 way you write to, the way you'll take photos to, the way you talk on camera, 185 00:13:17.890 --> 00:13:21.180 to the way you do a podcast interview, right? It all has to be authentically 186 00:13:21.180 --> 00:13:24.450 you, but obviously it is designed a little bit and that you're being 187 00:13:24.450 --> 00:13:29.860 specific in the way you're coming across, yep, and consistent. So what's 188 00:13:29.860 --> 00:13:35.080 consistency is key? So how do you go about choosing those things? Like how 189 00:13:35.080 --> 00:13:38.900 do you work backwards? Like for example, how did you choose the dress as the 190 00:13:38.900 --> 00:13:43.380 signature item? Did you think backwards? It like no, like what do I want to look 191 00:13:43.380 --> 00:13:48.190 like? How do I see myself? Or is it something like, what would they expect? 192 00:13:48.190 --> 00:13:52.400 Or is it kind of like a blend of the two? It was nothing to do with what the 193 00:13:52.400 --> 00:13:57.770 audience would expect. It was 100% what am I comfortable in and what is someone 194 00:13:57.780 --> 00:14:02.430 of my job would normally wear? Right, So first of all I'm just really 195 00:14:02.430 --> 00:14:06.610 comfortable and sheath dresses, like it's almost like wearing pajamas, but 196 00:14:06.610 --> 00:14:10.330 they are nicely fitted and tailored, but it's just so soft and easy to move 197 00:14:10.330 --> 00:14:14.460 in and so it's much more comfortable for me than, say, a pair of jeans or 198 00:14:14.460 --> 00:14:17.600 something like that. And then I'm in sales and business dev, you know, I 199 00:14:17.600 --> 00:14:21.580 meet with sea levels, you know, executives, I meet with investors and 200 00:14:21.580 --> 00:14:25.850 so people don't always show up into those kinds of things with like jeans 201 00:14:25.850 --> 00:14:30.570 and sneakers on to begin with. So that's first off, and a lot of my paid 202 00:14:30.570 --> 00:14:35.440 keynotes are consider business attire, Which means, again, you shouldn't be 203 00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:38.850 wearing like jeans and sneakers. So that was already off the table and it's 204 00:14:38.850 --> 00:14:43.120 just something that I was already comfortable in and I can by repetitive 205 00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:47.980 Lee. So I literally do have the exact same dress in, like 20-25 different 206 00:14:47.980 --> 00:14:52.550 colors, patterns and, and fabrics, but it's essentially the exact same dress. 207 00:14:52.560 --> 00:14:56.930 Yeah. And that just helps people remember, helps give you a distinct 208 00:14:56.930 --> 00:15:00.220 style and your new thing. Like if you picture Simon cowell's in your head, I 209 00:15:00.220 --> 00:15:02.780 guarantee you you're going to think about him in a particular shirt, You're 210 00:15:02.780 --> 00:15:06.480 thinking about it right now. It's a black v neck. That's what he wears. 211 00:15:06.490 --> 00:15:10.900 Either he decided that or a brand specialists who specialized in like 212 00:15:10.910 --> 00:15:14.760 brand identity told him, hey, this is your thing, right? Some, some people 213 00:15:14.760 --> 00:15:18.410 like steve jobs just decided they like black turtlenecks. But oftentimes 214 00:15:18.410 --> 00:15:23.370 celebrities are being told by highly paid individuals what their look should 215 00:15:23.370 --> 00:15:27.020 be and how to be memorable because that's a big part of the game. Things 216 00:15:27.020 --> 00:15:29.330 you need to think about it as a thought leader. I know we're spending a lot of 217 00:15:29.330 --> 00:15:33.950 time on dress, but this plays into like, I think most areas of branding, right? 218 00:15:33.960 --> 00:15:38.610 Finding that thing that's true to yourself, that's appropriate within the 219 00:15:38.610 --> 00:15:43.010 space or maybe strategically inappropriate. Right? Exactly. And then 220 00:15:43.010 --> 00:15:45.900 trying to be consistent in it. So let's walk through some of those other 221 00:15:45.900 --> 00:15:49.030 elements that you've spelled out, including enhancing your name. Tell me 222 00:15:49.030 --> 00:15:53.710 a little bit more about that. Sure. So I'm lucky in that I'm the only Robin 223 00:15:53.710 --> 00:15:58.620 furman for me in in the entire universe. But when I google other people's names, 224 00:15:58.630 --> 00:16:02.340 sometimes they're not the only name in the universe. And it can be really hard 225 00:16:02.340 --> 00:16:06.790 to differentiate. So if you have, you know, a first name like Michael or 226 00:16:06.790 --> 00:16:11.250 David, which is very, very popular. And then you also have a last name that is 227 00:16:11.250 --> 00:16:15.810 also a popular last name. You might want to tweak your name some way, right? 228 00:16:15.810 --> 00:16:20.310 And that might be adding the doctor to the beginning. That if you're, you know, 229 00:16:20.310 --> 00:16:25.050 if you are a doctor or it could be adding a middle initial or it could be, 230 00:16:25.060 --> 00:16:28.980 you know, using a nickname but something that will literally 231 00:16:28.990 --> 00:16:32.770 differentiate your name. And if you can't think of anything and your name 232 00:16:32.770 --> 00:16:36.890 is something uh, you know, popular like Michael scott, like just or Michael 233 00:16:36.890 --> 00:16:42.160 smith or something like that, you could say Michael sweet smith, technology 234 00:16:42.160 --> 00:16:46.930 entrepreneur and like have those two words always appear with your name. So 235 00:16:46.930 --> 00:16:50.620 you're essentially branding yourself in a name and that way you can 236 00:16:50.620 --> 00:16:54.000 differentiate yourself because let me tell you, there are a lot of speakers 237 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:57.660 and authors where I've tried Googling them and I couldn't find them right 238 00:16:57.660 --> 00:17:03.630 away. If you're not those first few results for your, not only your subject 239 00:17:03.640 --> 00:17:08.579 but your actual name. You've got to differentiate from the people who are 240 00:17:08.579 --> 00:17:14.160 the first results for your name. As a marketer, you're probably brainstorming 241 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:17.750 outside the box ideas to engage your prospects and customers working 242 00:17:17.750 --> 00:17:21.480 remotely. And you've probably thought about sending them direct mail to break 243 00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:25.589 through the zoom fatigue. But how do you ship personalized gifts to remote 244 00:17:25.589 --> 00:17:29.910 decision makers When you have no idea where they're sitting at B two B growth? 245 00:17:29.910 --> 00:17:33.770 We use the craft and platform to send hyper personalized gifts to anyone 246 00:17:33.770 --> 00:17:37.280 working from anywhere. Crafting makes it easy for your prospects and 247 00:17:37.280 --> 00:17:41.800 customers to pick and personalize their own gift in real time and offers highly 248 00:17:41.800 --> 00:17:45.720 secure data capture. So decision makers feel comfortable submitting their home 249 00:17:45.720 --> 00:17:49.960 addresses for shipping purposes. To get your own personalized craft and gift. 250 00:17:50.040 --> 00:17:54.590 Go to craft um dot io slash growth to schedule a demo and receive a 251 00:17:54.590 --> 00:17:58.350 complimentary personalized gift from craft. Um to claim your personalized 252 00:17:58.350 --> 00:18:05.820 gift, go to craft um dot io slash growth, that's fantastic. I was just 253 00:18:05.820 --> 00:18:08.550 thinking, I'm like, you know what? I kind of stumbled into that on accident, 254 00:18:08.940 --> 00:18:12.860 hence calling myself Danchev and just said to just dan Sanchez, which became, 255 00:18:13.240 --> 00:18:17.430 was, it was like a hashtag like even eight months ago, I just started doing 256 00:18:17.430 --> 00:18:21.230 it on linkedin and people have stuck Because there is honestly about, I 257 00:18:21.230 --> 00:18:25.470 think there's about 2000 of Dan Sanchez is out there. It's a common name, so I 258 00:18:25.470 --> 00:18:28.920 mix it together and I'm pretty much the only one that goes by Dan says now it's 259 00:18:28.920 --> 00:18:33.520 awesome, it's cute, it's funny, it's interesting and it's still, I can still 260 00:18:33.520 --> 00:18:37.870 go by dan Sanchez and people know, but it's still just a different naming 261 00:18:37.870 --> 00:18:41.730 thing and the way we know Gary Vaynerchuk, uh he's got such a long 262 00:18:41.730 --> 00:18:46.630 name, he just started going by Gary V because less syllables is usually more 263 00:18:46.630 --> 00:18:50.150 memorable. That kind of depends. Right? So I know he had shortened it and a lot 264 00:18:50.150 --> 00:18:53.000 of I've seen a lot of people play with the name, what would you say to people 265 00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:57.660 who have like just really harsh sounding names or like they're just 266 00:18:57.660 --> 00:19:01.810 names, it's kind of like, you know, they just don't have a great name. What 267 00:19:01.810 --> 00:19:04.200 would you say to people like that? Have you ever worked with customers whose 268 00:19:04.200 --> 00:19:08.370 names are just sound not funny, but like they're hard to really hard to say 269 00:19:08.370 --> 00:19:11.240 they're they're impossible to spell. I could think of like a friend whose last 270 00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:15.510 name is like sub check and it's it's literally impossible to spell right and 271 00:19:15.510 --> 00:19:19.020 even the way I said it, you would never guess the spelling of it. So I would 272 00:19:19.020 --> 00:19:21.450 say make sure your first name is easy, 273 00:19:22.540 --> 00:19:25.830 right? And so I do have some clients that I've worked with and some 274 00:19:25.830 --> 00:19:30.210 entrepreneurs have worked with from china right and their names started 275 00:19:30.210 --> 00:19:35.290 with an X and for an american, anything that starts with the letter X, you say 276 00:19:35.300 --> 00:19:39.840 x x ray, right or something like that. And it's so rare in the english 277 00:19:39.840 --> 00:19:43.700 language, I'm like no one can remember how to spell your name and no one knows 278 00:19:43.700 --> 00:19:47.470 how to say it. So you need one of your names, like your first name or your 279 00:19:47.470 --> 00:19:51.520 last name, but hopefully your first name be something that the audience you 280 00:19:51.520 --> 00:19:58.010 are trying to target and reach will be able to remember and spell and remember. 281 00:19:58.020 --> 00:20:03.260 A lot of Hollywood actors and even authors change their name all the time. 282 00:20:03.270 --> 00:20:07.230 Some of them changed their name to be completely brand new and nothing like 283 00:20:07.230 --> 00:20:10.890 their old name and some just tweak their names. But really I mean if you 284 00:20:10.890 --> 00:20:14.520 want to go ahead and tweak your name you're welcome to do that. There's no 285 00:20:14.520 --> 00:20:17.950 reason you even have to go through anything legal. You can have that stage 286 00:20:17.950 --> 00:20:22.080 name that name that everyone on social media calls you by and everyone on your 287 00:20:22.090 --> 00:20:25.680 email list but then you know when you pay your taxes you pay under your 288 00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:30.460 normal name. So many different ways to mix and match it could literally be a 289 00:20:30.460 --> 00:20:34.610 nickname. It could be you probably name tied to the industry if you can find 290 00:20:34.610 --> 00:20:38.880 some fancy alliteration to make it work or and find the domain name and then 291 00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:44.020 everybody kind of knows you. Is that thing think about E patient Dave right. 292 00:20:44.030 --> 00:20:48.180 E patient Dave. I don't most people don't know his last name is D bronc 293 00:20:48.190 --> 00:20:51.470 something I can't even remember it because it's hard but I remember e 294 00:20:51.470 --> 00:20:55.960 patient Dave right? And he's a very famous E patient now, just by that name, 295 00:20:56.440 --> 00:20:59.810 yep, that works. I think the one scary thing about is you get locked into that 296 00:20:59.810 --> 00:21:04.440 one thing and it's hard to pivot later. Right? But I'm sure people have done it. 297 00:21:04.450 --> 00:21:08.820 One thing you talk about is having a fundamental truth. Tell me a little bit 298 00:21:08.820 --> 00:21:12.280 more about that. It's not necessarily a mission of a kind, but what do you mean 299 00:21:12.280 --> 00:21:16.280 by fundamental truth? So when I'm talking about your thought leader 300 00:21:16.290 --> 00:21:22.780 formula itself, it is a combination of your y and your fundamental truth and 301 00:21:22.780 --> 00:21:26.480 that's really the beginning of your thought leader platform and so your 302 00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:30.470 fundamental truth is something that you believe that either the rest of the 303 00:21:30.470 --> 00:21:34.840 world doesn't even know about yet or don't actually agree with you, for 304 00:21:34.840 --> 00:21:39.930 instance, my first book and how I launched myself was the patient as Ceo, 305 00:21:39.940 --> 00:21:44.670 right? And that is a concept that when you go to places like Germany and Japan, 306 00:21:44.680 --> 00:21:49.200 their mouths dropped open because it's a very paternalistic healthcare system. 307 00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:52.530 And so when the patient goes in to see a doctor, they're not even supposed to 308 00:21:52.530 --> 00:21:56.370 ask questions, they say yes, thank you. And then you're supposed to go do what 309 00:21:56.370 --> 00:22:01.300 the doctor tells you to do, right? And by saying the patient is the Ceo that 310 00:22:01.300 --> 00:22:07.910 is a dramatic shift in how people view patients. And so that's my fundamental 311 00:22:07.910 --> 00:22:12.770 truth. But it also is something that I truly believe, right, always make sure 312 00:22:12.770 --> 00:22:18.420 you walk your talk. I'm I am the essentially Ceo of my own healthcare 313 00:22:18.420 --> 00:22:22.360 team and I demonstrate that over and over and over again with real life 314 00:22:22.360 --> 00:22:27.170 scenarios and I talk about it on stage, so it makes sense. You're essentially 315 00:22:27.170 --> 00:22:31.470 like taking what is a long explanation for what could be in finding a very 316 00:22:31.470 --> 00:22:37.110 short insistent way to summarize it into one a one liner kind of like um 317 00:22:37.120 --> 00:22:41.380 Toyota has always better never best right to summarize kind of the lean 318 00:22:41.380 --> 00:22:44.680 manufacturing, which has a whole book behind it, but you can kind of get the 319 00:22:44.680 --> 00:22:49.560 sense of it and always better never best write your summarising your truce. 320 00:22:49.940 --> 00:22:53.670 And would you say these truths are like the unique things you're doing to 321 00:22:53.670 --> 00:22:57.420 expand the industry? Because I'd say thought leadership is making unique, 322 00:22:57.430 --> 00:23:01.250 it's not just being an expert, it's making unique contributions, right? And 323 00:23:01.250 --> 00:23:05.370 these truths are your unique contributions as a thought leader, your 324 00:23:05.370 --> 00:23:11.020 pillars as a thought leader. Exactly. So thinking about the fact that also 325 00:23:11.030 --> 00:23:14.540 many of us have more than one fundamental truth, So it's really 326 00:23:14.540 --> 00:23:20.580 targeting it down to that one concept that you can build a brand off of a 327 00:23:20.590 --> 00:23:25.910 platform, remember anything you do now doesn't mean you can't do other things 328 00:23:25.920 --> 00:23:29.280 next year or the year after, right? You're not going to pigeon your whole 329 00:23:29.280 --> 00:23:33.350 yourself necessarily. I mean if you call yourself e patient dave maybe you 330 00:23:33.350 --> 00:23:37.610 don't go into agriculture with that name, but in general like with the 331 00:23:37.620 --> 00:23:42.320 patient as ceo I've done now the healthcare stuff, I've done the thought 332 00:23:42.320 --> 00:23:46.580 leadership step. So I thought leadership stuff which I can't say 333 00:23:46.580 --> 00:23:51.350 obviously and I've also done facilitating virtual events. So I've 334 00:23:51.350 --> 00:23:55.160 put out a book in the event world right? And now I'm about ready to put out 1/4 335 00:23:55.160 --> 00:24:00.540 book and that's on a I democratizing healthcare. And so really I I decided 336 00:24:00.540 --> 00:24:04.660 not to let anything pigeonholed me, but everything just keeps building 337 00:24:05.640 --> 00:24:09.670 absolutely. I have noticed that thought leaders, you are professional thought 338 00:24:09.670 --> 00:24:15.040 leaders often have a specific beachhead that they come in on with one idea, but 339 00:24:15.040 --> 00:24:18.290 then afterwards, once you kind of have that established you can do one after 340 00:24:18.290 --> 00:24:22.630 another after another. Hence Gary V started with the wine guy, he was the 341 00:24:22.630 --> 00:24:26.530 wine guy and then he became the social media guy. And now lately he's been the 342 00:24:26.530 --> 00:24:30.370 crypto N. F. T. Guy. Like he keeps adding these feathers to his hat. But 343 00:24:30.380 --> 00:24:34.320 ultimately it's becoming a truer expression to him and you can continue 344 00:24:34.320 --> 00:24:38.400 to add those things. Of course he would say that you only know 5% of who I 345 00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:42.890 actually am because I've crafted this brand, but you can do one thing after 346 00:24:42.890 --> 00:24:46.200 another though I'd say usually probably have to pick one thing and stick with 347 00:24:46.200 --> 00:24:51.260 it for a while. Yes and I mean that's that's something from from Silicon 348 00:24:51.260 --> 00:24:55.290 Valley entrepreneurship. Right? When you are first launching a company, you 349 00:24:55.290 --> 00:24:59.210 need to be able to do one thing incredibly well with a very well 350 00:24:59.210 --> 00:25:03.520 defined vertical, Right? And so for instance, I worked at a health tap back 351 00:25:03.520 --> 00:25:08.520 in 2010 and this is data and telemedicine type platform and when we 352 00:25:08.520 --> 00:25:12.610 first initially launched in order to get feedback and really kind of look at 353 00:25:12.610 --> 00:25:16.630 the product, we did it just for pregnant women and new moms, even 354 00:25:16.630 --> 00:25:21.420 though we were not even remotely going to focus on that later on. Right later 355 00:25:21.420 --> 00:25:25.070 on, we were planning on going across all the major diseases, from diabetes 356 00:25:25.070 --> 00:25:30.070 to cardiovascular health, but we really just launched in that one well defined 357 00:25:30.070 --> 00:25:34.740 market, so we could get traction and then once we were able to get traction 358 00:25:34.740 --> 00:25:40.010 and understand what was going on, then we expanded across diseases. Makes 359 00:25:40.010 --> 00:25:44.720 sense? So just like it's you incorporated right? You really do have 360 00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:48.330 to do to build a personal brand and I thought leadership, you really do have 361 00:25:48.330 --> 00:25:50.560 to think about all the things that normal business would have to think 362 00:25:50.560 --> 00:25:53.280 about. Just like if you were starting up, you do have to think about who's 363 00:25:53.280 --> 00:25:56.910 your market, who is your audience, what's the solution generally that you 364 00:25:56.910 --> 00:26:01.300 as a brand bring to the table like all that kind of like um like steve blank's 365 00:26:01.310 --> 00:26:04.570 four steps to the epiphany, the lean startup kind of methodology you really 366 00:26:04.570 --> 00:26:07.460 have to bring yourself, which is probably why a lot of people don't get 367 00:26:07.460 --> 00:26:10.610 into it because let's be honest, like those steps and entrepreneurship are 368 00:26:10.620 --> 00:26:14.590 kind of hard. Let's say they do find it though. How long do you think you 369 00:26:14.590 --> 00:26:17.760 should stick to it or when do you know, you were able to break away from the 370 00:26:17.760 --> 00:26:22.050 first thing you got established and can established another thing? Well, first 371 00:26:22.050 --> 00:26:26.530 of all, um has it fed your revenue stream enough because you shouldn't be 372 00:26:26.530 --> 00:26:29.850 launching yourself just as a thought leader and expect money to fall in your 373 00:26:29.850 --> 00:26:35.080 lap because it's not going to happen. Right, What is your business model? So 374 00:26:35.080 --> 00:26:39.470 looking at your business model, have you been able to feed it correctly? Is 375 00:26:39.470 --> 00:26:44.570 it working? And once it started working and really got new traction then, is it 376 00:26:44.570 --> 00:26:49.970 time to launch a second brand or, or vertical? And what is the business 377 00:26:49.970 --> 00:26:53.700 model for? That? That makes sense, But you might have to pivot on the way 378 00:26:53.700 --> 00:26:56.450 there in case the first one didn't quite, I don't know if I'm ready for 379 00:26:56.450 --> 00:27:00.450 whatever reason, just didn't connect the way you wanted it to. So it might 380 00:27:00.450 --> 00:27:03.800 be interesting. Moving on. One of the other things you talk about for a 381 00:27:03.800 --> 00:27:07.740 personal brand is catchphrases and I love this. I recently read about even 382 00:27:07.740 --> 00:27:11.750 at a different thing, a book called Primal branding, I think they caught 383 00:27:11.750 --> 00:27:16.870 words or like um sacred words, but I'm like, it's kind of the same thing, like 384 00:27:16.870 --> 00:27:20.840 what do you mean by catchphrases specifically? And then I'd like to kind 385 00:27:20.840 --> 00:27:25.160 of go back and forth on different iterations of it. Sure, so thinking 386 00:27:25.160 --> 00:27:30.410 about what are those 3 to 5 phrases? And I mean just to start that you 387 00:27:30.410 --> 00:27:34.890 repeat over and over again. Right? So one of mine would be the patient as ceo, 388 00:27:34.900 --> 00:27:39.950 right? That's both fundamental truth. A book name as well as a catchphrase, 389 00:27:40.540 --> 00:27:45.050 Right, Another catchphrase could be back when I first launched that book 390 00:27:45.060 --> 00:27:50.160 Doctors as medical Engineers, right? So I could just say that concept over and 391 00:27:50.160 --> 00:27:54.020 over again and all of my interviews and put it in my books and put it up on 392 00:27:54.020 --> 00:27:59.980 stage so that these are concepts and phrases that get associated with your 393 00:27:59.980 --> 00:28:03.960 brand, What would you think about coming up with phrases that are not 394 00:28:03.960 --> 00:28:09.220 necessarily tied to your thought leadership, but tied to just you and 395 00:28:09.220 --> 00:28:14.220 your personality or tied to something that's specific about your brand. Have 396 00:28:14.220 --> 00:28:18.310 you played with those at all with yourself or with customers? Uh so it 397 00:28:18.310 --> 00:28:22.260 kind of blends for me because I do have enough catchphrases now and enough 398 00:28:22.260 --> 00:28:26.270 things that I can go into like fundamental truth and your why? Right? 399 00:28:26.270 --> 00:28:31.130 That's another one of my essentially catchphrases. So it's just, I mean you 400 00:28:31.130 --> 00:28:34.860 can really have as many as you want and they can be related to either just your 401 00:28:34.860 --> 00:28:38.830 personal brand or to your business model, but they're really just things 402 00:28:38.830 --> 00:28:42.760 that you're going to say over and over again concepts that Essentially getting 403 00:28:42.760 --> 00:28:48.640 your concepts down 3-5 words, 3-5 words. That's a good rule. And it's funny 404 00:28:48.640 --> 00:28:53.060 because we can all think of different catchphrases from all popular brands, 405 00:28:53.060 --> 00:28:56.410 like Nike is most famous, just do it right, is a catchphrase from their 406 00:28:56.410 --> 00:29:00.180 brand and ways to sink your teeth into something and they can probably be more 407 00:29:00.180 --> 00:29:04.370 thought driven or maybe concept driven, certainly more emotionally driven, like 408 00:29:04.370 --> 00:29:07.850 just do it. Um could probably be all over the place. In fact there might be 409 00:29:08.240 --> 00:29:11.540 I imagine would be powerful if you can work emotion to it. I don't know how 410 00:29:11.540 --> 00:29:14.520 thought leaders would work more emotion into a specific phrase, but I imagine 411 00:29:14.520 --> 00:29:19.180 it's possible the last thing you kind of have in your steps to building a 412 00:29:19.190 --> 00:29:23.920 great brand, is building your bio or story. So, tell me a little bit more 413 00:29:23.920 --> 00:29:29.450 about that. Well, if you haven't had a professional bio done right, and, like, 414 00:29:29.460 --> 00:29:33.430 you're launching yourself as a thought leader, I'd say, have someone can help 415 00:29:33.430 --> 00:29:38.080 you with it, because sometimes you are so close to it, that it's difficult for 416 00:29:38.080 --> 00:29:42.130 you to really take out the things that are most important, and so what I did 417 00:29:42.140 --> 00:29:46.260 now, I'm an expert of course at writing bios, and I can write my own or anybody 418 00:29:46.260 --> 00:29:49.750 else is in a matter of minutes, but when I first started out what, eight 419 00:29:49.750 --> 00:29:53.830 years ago, I was like, I don't know how to do this. And so I brought on a pr 420 00:29:53.830 --> 00:29:58.510 company who went and went through and created like a small bio, a medium 421 00:29:58.510 --> 00:30:03.130 length and then a super long bio for me, and then I just took those and I built 422 00:30:03.130 --> 00:30:06.490 off of them. So you kind of build a different back stories for different 423 00:30:06.490 --> 00:30:11.860 people depending on their fundamental truths and their audience, I imagine, 424 00:30:11.870 --> 00:30:15.110 because everybody is you have a really everybody's got a really long backstory. 425 00:30:15.110 --> 00:30:17.540 If you tell someone to tell you a minute and 20 stories, they can ramble 426 00:30:17.540 --> 00:30:21.550 for 20 minutes, but most of it's not really relevant to the audience. So 427 00:30:21.550 --> 00:30:25.200 what kind of things are you looking for when you're looking at a story, let's 428 00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:31.280 say they're there, want to become a thought leader there, they sell to SAAS 429 00:30:31.280 --> 00:30:34.390 companies, right? And they want to be positioned as a thought leader. They 430 00:30:34.390 --> 00:30:38.260 have a new way of running SAS companies are helping them enhance reoccurring 431 00:30:38.260 --> 00:30:41.880 revenue or something like that. Maybe they discovered a methodology that 432 00:30:41.880 --> 00:30:44.610 really helps them do it, and they've been pioneering that in the space like 433 00:30:44.610 --> 00:30:49.160 what kind of things are you looking for in that kind of persons backstory? So 434 00:30:49.160 --> 00:30:54.300 something that is personal that can give that emotional response right? And 435 00:30:54.300 --> 00:30:59.560 tie you to that. So when we started this interview we talked about why I 436 00:30:59.560 --> 00:31:02.910 decided to become a thought leader Right? Why I became a professional 437 00:31:02.910 --> 00:31:06.770 speaker. It's because I was so pushed down in Silicon Valley and how that 438 00:31:06.770 --> 00:31:11.060 much you know how that changed the equation. And so there's that story 439 00:31:11.060 --> 00:31:14.140 where you can have the emotional reaction and take them onto that 440 00:31:14.140 --> 00:31:20.280 success thing. So that's always a good one. or what may be some kind of an 441 00:31:20.280 --> 00:31:24.920 epiphany right? So that one works well too. Like you were watching a baseball 442 00:31:24.920 --> 00:31:30.050 game one day you were at work and you know your I. T. Guy said this and then 443 00:31:30.050 --> 00:31:33.370 all of a sudden bam the light bulb went off and you had an epiphany and that's 444 00:31:33.370 --> 00:31:38.740 why you want to do this. So it could really just be um anything that gives 445 00:31:38.740 --> 00:31:42.140 that emotional response. It sounds like there's a couple different templates or 446 00:31:42.140 --> 00:31:46.970 ways of going about it. Like you just said because you had you had an 447 00:31:46.980 --> 00:31:52.040 obstacle that you were facing. You had an epiphany right? That hey this should 448 00:31:52.040 --> 00:31:54.770 be a thing. Like you maybe you connect to different ideas together and you're 449 00:31:54.770 --> 00:32:00.110 like what the I wonder what some other common stories are. Kind of like I 450 00:32:00.110 --> 00:32:03.680 guess they this this might be the epiphany but of common origin story for 451 00:32:03.680 --> 00:32:07.940 most companies is uh I had this problem myself and I was like huh? How come 452 00:32:07.940 --> 00:32:11.860 nobody else does this? Right? Like Uber that's the story. They were stuck in a 453 00:32:11.870 --> 00:32:17.240 I think a snowstorm and Harris and they couldn't hail a cab and had ways to go 454 00:32:17.250 --> 00:32:19.690 and they're like, man, wouldn't it be nice if there was an apple record? Just 455 00:32:19.690 --> 00:32:23.050 some in the cabin, they would come to me right, Uber was born. And I actually 456 00:32:23.050 --> 00:32:26.120 think the real story was a lot more longer complicated, but it's certainly 457 00:32:26.120 --> 00:32:29.830 a nice soundbite that they've essentially crafted into a story. Um 458 00:32:29.830 --> 00:32:34.600 Can you think of any other like Takeaways or tactics for trying to find 459 00:32:34.610 --> 00:32:38.430 the story? 11 thing that I find happens a lot is like the story behind the 460 00:32:38.430 --> 00:32:41.600 company is like, well, it seemed like it was a profitable market that was 461 00:32:41.600 --> 00:32:44.540 kind of interesting to me and therefore I developed a product around it and I 462 00:32:44.550 --> 00:32:47.470 happen to have the right idea now, the products pretty good, but I don't have 463 00:32:47.470 --> 00:32:52.450 a really compelling story. It's because they didn't bring on an expert to help 464 00:32:52.460 --> 00:32:56.980 them, Right? So you've got to understand that in the world of 465 00:32:56.980 --> 00:33:00.640 marketing, you've got experts who have done this for years and maybe have a 466 00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:04.190 lot of education. And then you've got people who are starting companies who 467 00:33:04.190 --> 00:33:07.990 might be an engineer or might be a biologist or you know, might have 468 00:33:07.990 --> 00:33:12.990 studied finance, but not necessarily marketing. And then, uh, you know, they 469 00:33:12.990 --> 00:33:16.870 try to come up with their own personal story and it looks like it's a mess 470 00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:20.260 because they've never tried to do that before. They're not an expert. So I 471 00:33:20.260 --> 00:33:25.740 tell people hire a coach for one session, even just one session to 472 00:33:25.740 --> 00:33:29.110 really break it down. Because like I could hear someone's personal story, 473 00:33:29.120 --> 00:33:31.690 you know, you could spend three or five minutes telling me and I'll get that 474 00:33:31.690 --> 00:33:36.330 down to like three sentences in seconds, right? Because I'm used to being able 475 00:33:36.330 --> 00:33:42.550 to do that. That is a skill that needs to be learned and actually used not 476 00:33:42.550 --> 00:33:45.420 just suddenly come up with at the spur of the moment when you want to become a 477 00:33:45.420 --> 00:33:49.800 thought leader. But if you want to try to do your own first thing I tell 478 00:33:49.800 --> 00:33:55.410 people is no more than three major details, right? Yeah. Because a lot of 479 00:33:55.410 --> 00:33:59.640 the time someone will tell a story and they go on like, have you heard of an 480 00:33:59.640 --> 00:34:03.270 eight year old ever telling a story like on this favorite cartoon, eight 481 00:34:03.270 --> 00:34:09.540 year old right now? And it takes them 15 minutes to tell you something. That 482 00:34:09.540 --> 00:34:13.040 should have been one sentence and that's what a lot of people think our 483 00:34:13.040 --> 00:34:17.350 storytelling is. So instead think about what are the three main points you need 484 00:34:17.350 --> 00:34:20.560 to get across in the shortest length of time. 485 00:34:21.639 --> 00:34:25.070 You want to write it on the back of a napkin or the back of the envelope? 486 00:34:25.080 --> 00:34:29.719 It's your elevator pitch. Yeah, so three main points. And is it almost is 487 00:34:29.719 --> 00:34:32.590 it usually along the lines of like the world was like this, there was a 488 00:34:32.590 --> 00:34:37.770 problem and then this it's kind of those things, if somebody who actually 489 00:34:37.770 --> 00:34:41.139 wanted to hire somebody like what what kind of job titles are they usually 490 00:34:41.139 --> 00:34:44.560 looking for in their headline? Of course they can contact you. But if 491 00:34:44.560 --> 00:34:47.330 they were looking for that one hour, like, okay, I want to just be able to 492 00:34:47.330 --> 00:34:50.370 tell my story for 30 minutes and they pull out the three sentences that are 493 00:34:50.370 --> 00:34:53.929 just going to work. What kind of person am I looking for that helps with that 494 00:34:53.940 --> 00:34:58.600 marketing team? Right. So yeah, so like there are marketing companies, there 495 00:34:58.600 --> 00:35:03.130 are marketing coaches, there are companies that just literally work on 496 00:35:03.130 --> 00:35:07.780 personal branding a lot of the time. Um These companies are 2 to 5 people or 497 00:35:07.780 --> 00:35:12.360 even just a solo consultant, like I'm a solo consultant and you just reach out 498 00:35:12.360 --> 00:35:16.830 to me and then you hire me for an hour and a lot of friends who do that kind 499 00:35:16.830 --> 00:35:20.970 of thing. So literally just start googling marketing marketing people on 500 00:35:20.970 --> 00:35:26.620 linkedin, Fantastic. And the last major part you do a huge push with your book 501 00:35:26.620 --> 00:35:31.170 on the power of writing a book. Now, this isn't super uncommon. I've talked 502 00:35:31.170 --> 00:35:33.480 to a couple of the thought leaders that push that, but I want to revisit it 503 00:35:33.480 --> 00:35:37.430 again because um the more I've read about it, the more I find that this 504 00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:42.820 this is the thing. A lot of people agree that the Almighty book um despite 505 00:35:42.820 --> 00:35:46.440 social media being so popular is still the number one way you become a thought 506 00:35:46.440 --> 00:35:53.480 leader. Why? Better than a degree? And let me tell you why? So I'm a chronic 507 00:35:53.480 --> 00:35:58.420 disease patient and my whole patient as Ceo book is based on that and the fact 508 00:35:58.420 --> 00:36:03.140 that I'm a technology entrepreneur, I am called Dr furman for me in more 509 00:36:03.140 --> 00:36:07.710 frequently sometimes that I'm called Robin, like thanks guys, but I have a 510 00:36:07.710 --> 00:36:13.840 Bs in management and finance. That's like my education. I am far from being 511 00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:19.450 a physician yet people just assume I am and this is a big deal in the world of 512 00:36:19.460 --> 00:36:25.010 medicine because most women who spend that 15 years studying medicine, doing 513 00:36:25.010 --> 00:36:28.910 residency and fellowship and all of that most of the time are not called 514 00:36:28.910 --> 00:36:33.590 Doctor, which is kind of interesting that people will just assume like they 515 00:36:33.590 --> 00:36:37.310 cannot get people to call them doctor and people just assume I am right. 516 00:36:37.310 --> 00:36:42.040 That's the power of a book. Just people seem to think that if you can write a 517 00:36:42.040 --> 00:36:45.860 book then you must be the world's expert. It's probably gonna go on like 518 00:36:45.860 --> 00:36:50.100 this for the next five or six years. Uh If you're trying to speak to generation 519 00:36:50.100 --> 00:36:54.190 Z, this is probably not the way. But if you're trying to speak to millennials, 520 00:36:54.200 --> 00:36:58.570 gen X or anyone older than that. Absolutely. A book is the equivalent of 521 00:36:58.570 --> 00:37:03.300 getting a graduate degree. Yeah. I mean, well did even write a book, even if 522 00:37:03.300 --> 00:37:08.000 it's and okay book, you still have to do a lot of work. You still have to do 523 00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:11.130 a lot of study and you still had to articulate all the things you learned, 524 00:37:11.130 --> 00:37:15.040 right? Which is why college has, you write papers. But generally you write 525 00:37:15.040 --> 00:37:18.730 nonsense so called papers because I have great I've worked, I've had my M. 526 00:37:18.730 --> 00:37:22.200 B. A. And I've totted colleges before and reading papers like worse than 527 00:37:22.200 --> 00:37:26.040 writing them right? If you write a book you actually have to write coherent 528 00:37:26.130 --> 00:37:30.320 something in there. Even if it's like not breakthrough. Um What if people 529 00:37:30.320 --> 00:37:34.020 feel like they're not ready to write a book? Like they have their an expert, 530 00:37:34.030 --> 00:37:37.190 they have some unique ideas but they haven't like flushed out their unique 531 00:37:37.190 --> 00:37:40.500 ideas. They haven't been practicing their unique ideas. They don't have a 532 00:37:40.500 --> 00:37:44.980 lot of evidence that show that you're, their unique ideas are like bulletproof 533 00:37:44.990 --> 00:37:48.670 yet and they're afraid that the real experts will come for them. What about 534 00:37:48.670 --> 00:37:53.350 those people? So there's two things first to think about. First of all, 535 00:37:53.830 --> 00:37:58.450 single digit hundreds, maybe thousands of people are going to read your book 536 00:37:59.030 --> 00:38:02.860 seriously. Like oh no there are very few people are actually going to read 537 00:38:02.860 --> 00:38:07.240 your book instead. They are going to hopefully be feeding your revenue 538 00:38:07.240 --> 00:38:11.340 streams like my revenue streams. I fundraise for startup companies and 539 00:38:11.340 --> 00:38:15.260 health care and I'm hired by big companies to come and give keynotes, 540 00:38:15.260 --> 00:38:19.250 right? So those are two of my big revenue strings. And so everything I do 541 00:38:19.250 --> 00:38:24.100 kind of wants to feed one of those. So, first of all thinking about that, but 542 00:38:24.100 --> 00:38:28.330 second of all this is a company, you have to get that into your brain. Being 543 00:38:28.330 --> 00:38:32.970 a thought leader is not an individual side project you do for fun, you've got 544 00:38:32.970 --> 00:38:37.800 to think of this as a company and you bring on experts because writing in 545 00:38:37.800 --> 00:38:43.280 general, but then specifically writing a book, This is a big deal, it is a 546 00:38:43.280 --> 00:38:48.930 skill set and it takes a lot of back knowledge on even how the process works. 547 00:38:48.940 --> 00:38:54.650 Right? And so if you have never written something more than 20 pages before, 548 00:38:55.020 --> 00:38:59.550 you might need to bring on extra help. And there are many ways to do that from, 549 00:38:59.550 --> 00:39:04.510 I I refer people to a bunch of my different friends who will ghost off 550 00:39:04.510 --> 00:39:08.710 there for them or they will be that person who helps bring them through the 551 00:39:08.710 --> 00:39:12.540 process, like a coach that stands with them and and it does a lot of the 552 00:39:12.540 --> 00:39:17.190 editing or help them with their outline. You can also use companies like Scribd 553 00:39:17.190 --> 00:39:21.600 media, who I used for my first book, which is amazing. They spend about 14 554 00:39:21.600 --> 00:39:25.150 hours with you, they talk to you on the phone, they help you outline your book, 555 00:39:25.520 --> 00:39:29.750 then they spend 10 hours just sitting there talking you through your outlined 556 00:39:29.760 --> 00:39:34.030 and everything is recorded transcribed, edited and then sent to you in a 557 00:39:34.030 --> 00:39:38.220 perfect book. Right? Those kinds of things are very, very pricey obviously. 558 00:39:38.230 --> 00:39:41.840 But then there are other ways you can hack it, go to something like scripted 559 00:39:41.840 --> 00:39:46.640 dot com and order. That's uh It's essentially articles on demand from 560 00:39:46.650 --> 00:39:51.990 just writers who can do like 800 word articles or something. Order seven or 8, 561 00:39:52.300 --> 00:39:56.510 word articles. Put that together as a book. Right? An intro and write a 562 00:39:56.510 --> 00:40:00.790 conclusion, smash it together. And there's your book, write a book, is a 563 00:40:00.790 --> 00:40:06.480 marketing tool. It is not a revenue stream. It's a way, I imagine if you 564 00:40:06.480 --> 00:40:10.850 package all your ideas in one book, you have a really nice little package to 565 00:40:10.860 --> 00:40:14.900 give people your thought leadership ideas. Two, they may be paid you a 566 00:40:14.900 --> 00:40:17.900 little bit of money for it. So it sets them up for maybe a bigger spend 567 00:40:17.900 --> 00:40:21.070 because the relationship has changed at some point. You can you obviously just 568 00:40:21.080 --> 00:40:24.060 splinter out all the different content in the book and all your social media 569 00:40:24.060 --> 00:40:29.160 post for who knows how long? So it plays a lot of different roles. But why, 570 00:40:29.170 --> 00:40:34.000 I guess, I guess the big part about a book more than a podcast, more than 571 00:40:34.010 --> 00:40:38.760 maybe a Youtube channel or social media of some kind is just the credibility 572 00:40:38.760 --> 00:40:43.640 that comes with the book. That's what it is. It's the packaging, it's just 573 00:40:43.640 --> 00:40:47.250 the packaging, you could you could literally, you know, say your entire 574 00:40:47.250 --> 00:40:51.110 book out loud and it's not going to have that same credibility as a 575 00:40:51.110 --> 00:40:56.240 physical book, even if it's just an e book. And that's really just the 576 00:40:56.250 --> 00:40:59.880 psychological conditioning we have here in the United States around books. Up 577 00:40:59.880 --> 00:41:05.460 until now, No one realizes just how easy it is to get it done. I don't know, 578 00:41:05.460 --> 00:41:10.270 I mean, it is hard to write a well formulated book. Would you say? It's 579 00:41:10.270 --> 00:41:15.850 better to write it earlier or later? So, start now. Right. I, I published my 580 00:41:15.850 --> 00:41:19.840 book, I think about a year, year and a half into my thought leader journey and 581 00:41:19.840 --> 00:41:24.440 that was on my actual project plan. So I came out with first a bunch of 582 00:41:24.450 --> 00:41:28.440 different articles that I had. I hired a PR company to place in high end 583 00:41:28.440 --> 00:41:32.760 magazines. So I had that kind of content catalog out there. Then I did a 584 00:41:32.760 --> 00:41:37.510 bunch of key notes and I hired someone to do like high end slides for me. And 585 00:41:37.510 --> 00:41:42.020 then I hired a team to come on and help me with my book. This is a company, you 586 00:41:42.020 --> 00:41:46.000 are building a brand. If you are trying to do it so low, you are probably not 587 00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:47.520 going to be as successful 588 00:41:48.610 --> 00:41:52.660 or it takes longer or maybe you just never get it done. I can see the point 589 00:41:52.660 --> 00:41:56.570 of hiring someone to help and some people have enough drive to push it all 590 00:41:56.570 --> 00:41:59.140 the way through and knock it out in a month or six months or whatever, 591 00:41:59.150 --> 00:42:03.430 whatever it might be. So this has been fascinating. There's so many other 592 00:42:03.430 --> 00:42:06.750 elements elements in this book that we could have dive into. But if you want 593 00:42:06.750 --> 00:42:09.740 to, you're going to have to go and read the whole book. I think we flushed out 594 00:42:09.740 --> 00:42:13.920 one chapter pretty well, but that's just one of many chapters in this book. 595 00:42:13.930 --> 00:42:18.950 Um, so again, the book is Thought Leader Formula. There's a lot of books 596 00:42:18.950 --> 00:42:21.890 with the title, Thought, Thought Leader. This is the one with the word formula 597 00:42:21.890 --> 00:42:26.860 in it. Um, and you'll see Robin right on the cover, Robin, it's been a 598 00:42:26.860 --> 00:42:29.810 delight to have you on the show. Thank you so much. If people want to learn 599 00:42:29.810 --> 00:42:32.920 more from you, where can they find you online? What's the best social network 600 00:42:32.920 --> 00:42:37.210 and then what's your website? Sure. So as I mentioned, I'm the only Robin Farm 601 00:42:37.210 --> 00:42:42.000 and Farm Ian in the entire universe. So you can reach me on linkedin facebook 602 00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:45.750 and twitter are the three that I'm on most frequently. And my website is 603 00:42:45.750 --> 00:42:49.970 Robin Fs dot com. Fantastic. Again, thanks for joining me on the show. 604 00:42:49.980 --> 00:42:51.730 Thank you. 605 00:42:54.200 --> 00:42:58.160 Is the decision maker for your product or service at BBB marketer. Are you 606 00:42:58.160 --> 00:43:02.340 looking to reach those buyers through the medium of podcasting? Consider 607 00:43:02.340 --> 00:43:07.590 becoming a co host of GDP Growth. This show is consistently ranked as a top 608 00:43:07.590 --> 00:43:11.740 100 podcast in the marketing category of apple podcasts and the show gets 609 00:43:11.740 --> 00:43:16.960 more than 100 and 30,000 downloads each month. We've already done the work of 610 00:43:16.970 --> 00:43:21.360 building the audience so you can focus on delivering incredible content to our 611 00:43:21.360 --> 00:43:25.820 listeners if you're interested email Logan at sweet fish media dot com.
